I had a double espresso dirty chai at four o’clock in the afternoon, on top of the exhilaration that is the end of the year. So I was lying in a salty bath at 11pm, my mind still very alert, and thinking about women, and how we repeatedly hide our truth from men.

And before you go stacking up all of the ways this is not true, before you think about all the truths you have told to men, or if you’re a man, before you start thinking “All I ever hear is what women think…” you can stop. Just pause. We’re talking about the underbelly here.

Because I like to drop a layer deeper, under the rhetoric, under the fast pace and the firey responses, and get to what’s real.

It happens all the time that women hide their truth from men. Every day. In fact, I realized in the bath last night, I had done it at least four times that I could think of in the 24 hours prior. In safe relationships, with men I love and who love me - not even something that threatened my safety or tripped my wires! (Because I’ve spent a LOT of time in those situations to, but that’s not really my gig anymore, thankfully.)

So I didn’t do it because I needed to for my safety, because they were actively dominating, or because they forced it - I did it because it’s habit. To just let some things roll. To work through it and manage it on my own.

I’m not talking about refraining from oversharing or expecting someone else to emotionally labor on my behalf, I’m just talking about little bits of truth that I just swallow. I just carry them, as a woman and in relation to men. The things that are true for me but I end up not setting the boundary I’d really prefer to have set, or not correcting an assumption that then lives on but I’d prefer that it didn’t.

And we know that there are bigger examples. We know what gets withheld. We know the effects in our throats for lifetimes.

And I’m laying in the bathtub thinking about this, thinking about how women tell me they want healthier relationships and autonomy and bravery, but there’s still space in my women’s group on cultivating personal truth which is SURE to cultivate some badassery and voice and meet those goals, and yet, they say the time isn’t right, or the cost is too high for them. And yet, I think that if we don’t somehow start to own our truth, we will watch ourselves perpetuate these same habits.

Because the world may not have been so good to women for a good while, but we have a great deal of autonomy about how we move forward. About how we give our OWN selves the permission to own our truth, and how we respond to our OWN opportunities to own that truth.

I want to work with women who are actively overcoming their own voice blocks. Who are willing to examine their own tendencies and where they stay small. Because that permission ain’t coming from anywhere else, my loves, other than inside of you.

Believe me.

I am a woman who has tried every avenue of truth telling I could think of - from written to vocal, from loud to soft, from friendly to spiteful, from indirect to direct. I’ve told a lot of truth. I know how to get to it, cultivate it, hear it, and take the courageous steps to step into it, and I’ve hid personal truth that would have grown ME if I’d shared it.

As recently as yesterday.

Because as women, it is customary. But it doesn’t have to be.

And yes, we’ve lived our traumas that have challenged our voices, but each and every woman must own her own responsibility to claim her Self, her Truth, fully. This is not a blog post about how my daddy didn’t let me have my voice, although that was certainly true. This is a blog post about what are we going to do about it? And please don’t tell me “nothing.”

When I say “Personal Truth,” I’m talking about the divine truth of your Soul, sisters. And when you get after your divine Soul, mine does a dance with you. I’m right behind you!

You will not be perfect. They will not know how to respond. Your life WILL change when you begin living like this, in alignment with your Truth. You do NOT have to fight to be heard in your life. You DO have to cultivate your clarity and your voice. It is our opportunity, our responsibility. We are doing this good work in ourselves and it shifts the experience for women on the planet. I am not kidding.

When one woman owns her autonomy, the world changes. This is how we make it better for women and girls. You have to believe in what you’ve got. And stop holding back. One step at a time.

I’m still on this walk. I will be. We all will be for a while, but now is always a good time to start.

If 2019 feels like your year to own your personal truth and to stop putting yourself off, I want to talk with you. There are still a few days to sign up for my 90 day group coaching opportunity for women to activate, cultivate, and own their personal truth. And let me tell you what, some powerful women are coming on board, and this will uplift us all to have this sisterhood. Send me a message today. We begin Jan 3. See Events Calendar on my website for more info.